February 12

To all the existing PA players, check in your Steam PA folder for some added goodies, I highly recommend the pro guide. Personally, it helped me go from a shit player to pretty average one in a matter of weeks.

Heres how to get there... right click properties > local files > browse local files...

Any problems send a mail to nick@digeratidistribution.com and I will send you the files, most likely by carrier pigeon or morse code. But whatever quirky mid 20th century method I choose to send your digital assets in, rest assured you will receive them within 24 hours of mailing me!

Extra in game content comes in the form of a new level type, a new item & a new goddam weapon god dammit. I sincerely hope you enjoy the game being back on sale as much as I've enjoyed traversing the Paranautical tightrope!

The Deluxe Atonement Edition includes the following
-Developer footage & commentary, from prototype to pre alpha to full release!
-The Seafarers Guide; A pro guide with a nautical twist. Consult the pro guide to become the leanest, baddest, mostest bestest Paranautical Activity player you can be.
-1 new level type, 1 new weapon and 1 new item.
-Wallpapers baby!

Let's neglect the fact that the original dev was a huge ♥♥♥♥ to everyone. Let's neglect the fact he raged like a child for a simple fixable reason and said some messed up things on twitter. Let's neglect the fact he outright cheated the original music composer out of pay, after he put personal pursuits on hold because he was told he'd get paid. Let's neglect the fact that the game got taken down off steam, bought out by a new publisher, and brought back to steam.

Its still an obsolete version of Ziggurat. While there are differences, in just about every regard Ziggurat is a superior game and your money would be better spent on that. This game was enjoyable for the nonexistant price of a humble bundle game, but I can't recommend spending any more than $5 on this.

I should probably have seen the Early Access reviews before purchasing it, but this is where you get a bit more savvy about positive reviews than negative ones.

And frankly, this game isn't too bad. It's just not... fun and doesn't feel too interesting. Think Doom and Binding Of Isaac, but with a worse Health system, weapons that feel powerless at times, and surprisingly bad frame drops at times.

Paranautical Activity (Deluxe Atonement, for its re-release after the minor controversy), is a rogue-lite FPS game, that seems to take notes from Doom and Binding Of Isaac. Yet, it seems to do it in ways that work against the game. While it does use some of the things (fast paced shooting, randomized rooms and floors, varying stats on each character), it doesn't use it well.

Weapons feel quite good to use, although some of them feel rather weak. The shotgun, from my point of view, felt like the biggest let-down of all the weapons, with the bow being powerful and one or two-hitting enemies, with no problem.

Power-ups feel nice too but with next to no proper explination as to what they do, when you pick them up, leave you to guess what they do, for whatever situation you're about to plummet into, with said power-up.

Enemies are... alright. Mostly tedious to deal with, since some range from simple "fire a bolt, wait for a while, rinse and repeat" to "'bullet hell'-like spam". Surprisingly, the most annoying enemy I faced was the floor sharks. Why? Tank-y characters can't dodge well, and with the floor sharks, I've ended up being juggled by them, shooting them with a shotgun that did abysmal damage, until I either died or completed the room that way.

Levels are pretty much the same square box, with randomised preset props, and enemies are dumped in when you enter. Nothing to write home about, except for what could amount to some problem with moving under staircases. Ended up getting stuck there, which has broken the flow of gameplay, quite a lot. There also seems to be some odd dissonance with the enemies that spawn in some rooms? Sometimes you get enemies who spawn in there, who get stuck in parts of the level geometry and just kinda... sits there.

The characters have different spawn weapons, health and speed, meaning that you have some variety in what you can do and can't do. And by variety, it boils down to how far you can get with the fast characters. I mentioned above that the tank-y characters are slow, and even the extra health they have, just makes them a sitting duck until they die. Along with some of them getting weapons which would be ideal for fast characters, since they promote "attack-retreat" tactics, they work against the character, requiring them risk taking hits, which they most likely will, to pump in shots that don't feel like they do much. Compared to the bow or the sicle, the shotgun feels like the ♥♥♥♥♥♥ pistol you throw out the window, as soon as you see anything remotely non-pistol like.

The bosses are... okay. They look interesting, but their design and looks are pretty much meaningless, since most of them just fire shots are you, non-stop until they spawn enemies or do some third thing that makes them slightly different from each other. And, honestly, they could be interesting if most of them didn't feel like the same boss. They just move around the area and shot, not really doing anything else, than the animation their set. Which sucks, cause the bosses I fought, looked really interesting.

The game itself, is it worth it, even after all that I complained about? For some people, if you've run out of rogue-lite games, akin to Ziggurat, it could be. If there's some more tweaks to the game, such as a revamped health system, characters and weapons being buffed, as well as some changes to make bosses less dependent on luck or power-ups, it can be a very fun game. Also the font is pretty damn ugly to look at, in the menu. And the menu looks really amateurish, which is kinda sad, considering a lot of indie games do a lot to make the menus look presentable.

Was I satisfied with the product? No. I felt like I bought a game that could've benefitted from more time in Early Access, especially now that we have a new dev team who works on the game. Hopefully, some future patches can make them game more fun to play and less annoying to deal with.

Do I recommend it? As you saw above, I don't. If you want to jump into the genre of rogue-like or rogue-lite or whatever the cool kids call it, look for a game like The Binding Of Isaac, Ziggurat, or look up some games within that genre on your own. If you really want it, prepare for a game that you may dislike or find too tedious to keep playing.

Movement is good, but shooting is unsatisfying. Rooms are randomly generated, but there isn't a lot of variety and floors/runs end up feeling the same in the end. Menus look rushed/unfinished. In the end, it's a shallow game that is alright for the first few goes, but fails to introduce any real variety.

People keep saying this is like Doom and Binding of Isaac. I have Hundreds of hours between those three games (Doom 1 2 and BOI) and this is nothing like those. Not every FPS with ♥♥♥♥♥♥ graphics is like Doom (BTW doom was not a Volumetric Pixle game it used sprites and was the graphical equivalant of Crysis for its time) and not every Rogue-lite is like Isaac (which is the KING of Rogue-lite).

Combat feels slow and boring (strafe, shoot, rinse, repeat), I mean you have to keep moving but it does not feel fast paced, just lame. The optimization is poor at best. Someone explain to me why skyrim runs at 4k resolution no problem but this game bounces between 50 and 600fps constantly. Weapons are uninspired and EXTREMLY limited. Powerups require cash and you rarely have enough for anything decent unless you save and gimp yourself.

If you want a FPS rogue-lite that doesnt run like crap and play like an autistic version of the two games everyone seems to be equating this to, try Eldritch. Or if you want to truly play a game like Doom or Isaac, just get those games, they are both infinitely better.

This is an abuse of Early Access system. It is not polished, it has many bugs, it has really poor optimization. And the devs first mocked with people, then mocked with Gabe. then got kicked out, then sold the game to a different publisher in its unfinished state.

Yeah aim of the developers is not reached since they lack basic courtesy. Anyway, what was that aim? It was simply replicating BoI in FPS setting. Shops, bombs, most of the skills and upgrades were designed on this. This is not bad, since BoI is really fun, but this does not add anything original to the genre either. Every addition came from some other roguelike, e.g Ghost from Spelunky. It is good knowing that developers also like the games I like and many likes, but a collection of features from some well known very well executed games to build a buggy, unfinished mess is completely different thing.

What is the original side of the game? To be fair it has two. First, its art style. User interface and menus are poorly designed, and game plays like the worst possible Unity example once can imagine, so expect stutters when passing through different menus. But in game voxel art is not that bad, and it feels unique. Also the soundtracks are not that bad, and distinct from other roguelike games. But being unique is not always a good thing, check some gameplay videos first, you may not like these at the end.

I am not a good FPS player, so I did not reach past floor 3, but it is not necessary to finish the game to see that this game is abandonware. Any obvious no brainer bug will be there until eternity while new publishers find publishing the new version with a gameplay video and a pdf file rather than some content wise and bug crushing more useful.

If u LOVE FPS and also LOVE binding of isaac, u may enjoy this a little, if u also are good with ignoring its bugs. If your feeling towards one of those two is less mediocre, u are advised to go and play some other FPS-roguelike. I can also advice you some other FPS roguelikes, since I have tried many: